The Five Books of Youth Part 1

The Five Books of Youth.

by Robert Hillyer.

BOOK I

A MISCELLANY

I - LA MARE DES FEES

The leaves rain down upon the forest pond, An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern; Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyond The autumn branches of the beeches burn With yellow flame and red amid the green, And patches of the darkening sky between.

This is an ancient country; in this wood The Druids raised their sacrificial stones; Here the vast timeless silences still brood Though the cold wind's October monotones Fan the enchanted senses with the dread Of holiness long-past and beauty dead.

How far beyond this glade the day-world turns Upon its pivot of reward and chance; Farther than the first star that palely burns Over the forest's meditative trance.

First star of evening, last star of day, The one grows clear, the other dies away.

Will they come back who once beneath these trees Invoked their long-forgotten G.o.ds with tears, Who heard the sob of the same twilight breeze Blow down the vistas of remembered years, Beside the tarn's black waters where they stood Close to their G.o.d, far from the mult.i.tude?

I watch, but they are long ago departed, Far as the world of day, or as the star; The forest loved her priests, and tranquil-hearted They stole away in dim procession, far Down the unechoing aisles, beyond recalling; The moss grows on the stones, the leaves are falling.

In vain I listen for their hissing speech, And seek white holy hands upon the air, They told their wors.h.i.+p to the yew and beech, And left them with the secret, trembling there, Nor shall they come at midnight nor at dawn; The G.o.ds are dead; the votaries are gone.

A form floats toward me down the corridor Of mighty trees, half-visioned through the haze, And stands beside me on that empty sh.o.r.e; So rest we there, and wonderingly gaze.

By the dead water, under the deep boughs, My Love and I renew our ancient vows.

MORET-SUR-LOING, 1918

II - PROTHALAMION

The faded turquoise of the sky Darkens into ocean green Flecked palely where the stars will rise.

A single bough between The s.p.a.cious colour and your half-closed eyes Hangs out its hazy traceries.

Still, like a drowsy G.o.d you lie, My fair unbidden guest, Your white hands crossed beneath your head, Your lips curved strangely mute with peace, Your hair moved lightly by the breeze.

A glow is shed Warm on your face from the last rays that push From the dying sun into the green vault of the west.

This is your bridal night; the golden bush Is heavy with the fruits that you will taste, Full ripened in desire.

You who have h.o.a.rded youth, this is your hour of waste, Your hour of squandering and drunkenness, Of wine-dashed lips and generous caress, Of brows thorn-crowned and bodies crucified,-- O bid me to the feast.

Tomorrow when the hills are washed with fire, Your door ajar against the flas.h.i.+ng East,-- O fling it wide.

PARIS, 1919

III - MONTMARTRE

A rocky hill above the town, Grey as the soul of silence, Except where two white strutting domes Stand aloof and frown On the huddled homes Of world-wept love and pain,-- They do not heed that tall disdain, But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain.

A woman, young, but old in love, Carried her child across the square; Her face was a dim drifting flame To which her pyre of hair Was a column of golden smoke.

Her eyes half told the secrets of Gay sins that no regret defiled; There her heart broke In the little question between her eyes.

Hearing the trees in the square she smiled, And sang to the child.

So pa.s.sed by in the narrow street That climbs the steep rock over the town, Love and the west wind in the stars; The wind and the sound of those lagging feet

Died like forgotten tears.

I waited till the stars went down, And I wrote these lines on a cloud to greet The dawn on the crystal stairs.

PARIS, 1919

IV - A LETTER

Dear boy, what can this stranger mean to you, Blown to your country by unbridled chance?

That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance Wherein as rising tides on hazy sh.o.r.es Rise the new flames and colours of romance?

Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your youth And fling you shorn of beauty to despair, The sum of all that fascinating truth That you have gleaned, hands tangled in brown hair, Eyes straining into contemplative fires,-- This truth shall not seem truth when trees are bare.

The hunger of the soul, the watcher left To brood the nearness of his own decay, Dully remarking the slow shameless theft Of the old holiness from day to day, How youth grows tarnished, wisdom changes false,-- Till one bends near to steal your life away.

Yet who am I to turn aside the hand Outstretched so friendly and so humbly proud, Heaped up with beauty from the sunrise land Of hearts adventurous and heads unbowed?

Only, look not at me with changing eyes When we must separate amid the crowd.

TOURS, 1918

V - ESTHER DANCING

Speak not nor stir. Here music is alive, Woven from those swift fingers, strong and light, Marching across those singing hands, or shed Slowly, like echoes down the m.u.f.fled night, Or beautifully translated, note by note, Some fainter voice, rhapsodic and remote, Or shaken out in melodies that dive Clear into fathoms of profounder things, Then suddenly again on rising wings, Burst into sun and hover overhead.

Incarnate music flas.h.i.+ng into form Fled from the vineyards of melodious Greece, Feet that have flown before the gathering storm Or glanced in gardens of the Golden Fleece, Face atune to all the songs that ma.s.s Their gusts of pa.s.sion on the sunlit gra.s.s, Image of lyric hope and veiled despair, Like them, thou shalt unutterably pa.s.s Into the silence and the shadowed air.

POMFRET, 1919

VI - HUNTERS

A vase red-wrought in Athens long ago....

The hunter and his gay companion ride Through the young fields of life; on every side Frail and fantastic the tall lilies grow.

Her head thrown back, her eyes afraid and wide, Flies like a phantom the grey spectral doe, Her light feet scarcely bend the gra.s.s below, Gloriously flying into eventide.

Ahead there lies the shadow, then the dark, And safety in the thick forestial night, But nearer still she hears the bloodhounds bark, And horses panting in impetuous flight, And hunters without pity for the slain, Halloing shrilly over the windy plain.

Sombre become the skies, the winds of fall Sing dangerously through the hissing gra.s.s; Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pa.s.s Over the tress, then comes an interval Of utter calm, the air is a mora.s.s Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call Rings suddenly from the onrus.h.i.+ng squall, And the storm closes in a whirling ma.s.s.

And still the doe eludes the raging hounds, And still the youths press onward toward the woods, Though the world shudders with diluvian sounds And the rain streams in undulating floods.

Sharp lightning splits the sky; the doe is gone.

O follow! follow! if it be till dawn.